A walk among the crowns
A raised bridge some five hundred metres long through the treetops.
Dietmar Rabich — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Membeth — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Membeth — CC0 · Membeth — CC0
Because deciduous beech forest covered most of central Europe after the last ice age and was then largely cleared for farming and timber over centuries. What survives old and unfelled is very rare, and represents a complete ecosystem still functioning. The inscription is a joint one covering sites in several European countries, and Hainich is one of them.
By car in practice — distances inside the park are large and public transport limited. The nearest entrances are from Bad Langensalza. Start with the treetop walkway then walk one forest trail. It combines with the Wartburg at nearby Eisenach over two days.
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A national park in western Thuringia protecting Germany's largest continuous deciduous beech forest, parts of it inscribed on the UNESCO list among the Ancient Beech Forests of Europe. The reason the forest survived intact is unexpected: the area was used for decades as a military training ground — Soviet, then German — so entry was barred and felling and farming prohibited. Forty years of military closure protected the forest from exploitation, and when it was declared a national park in 1997 it was among the most intact woodland in central Europe. This is a recurring pattern: closed border zones and military ranges became, after 1990, among Europe's most important nature reserves. Its best-known feature is the treetop walkway — a raised bridge some five hundred metres long on which visitors walk among the crowns at tens of metres above the ground, on a separate ticket. The forest itself is free with numbered trails. The best times are spring for the flowers and autumn for the colour.
A raised bridge some five hundred metres long through the treetops.
Continuous and unfelled, which is what earned the listing.
A pattern repeated across Europe after 1990: what was closed militarily survived ecologically.
Western Thuringia, between Eisenach and Mühlhausen